It Was
by gote
Summary: The butterflies must all have died.


_**prompt:** Write about a Muggleborn witch/wizard with a sibling._

_**competition: **__The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Round 11._  


* * *

**It was.**

_I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: a man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself._

_ROD SERLING, Los Angeles Times, 1967_

x

Their parents fought and Lily cried and Petunia pretended it was all okay.

Then Lily's hand snaked out from under the blankets and touched the tear that ran down her sister's face. "It's okay, Tuney," Lily said, and her voice was fierce and her eyes were emerald-sharp, even as they rimmed with red and wet with little-kid tears. "We have each other. We'll always have each other."

She said it like a promise, because it was.

x

"You have issues," James said, and there was hurt in his eyes, though he tried to sound dismissive. His hair dripped soaking wet down his cheeks, soaking his shoulders.

_I know_, Lily wanted to scream.

x

Lily came alive in the light of the day. Pulling on her sister's hand, braiding flowers into crowns for them both to wear, talking at an almost unintelligible speed, tucking her hair behind her ear when it fell into her face. Her eyes bright like Heaven's blessing, her hair glinting Devil red.

Petunia was the one who taught her to tie her shoes and look both ways before crossing the street. Petunia was the one who glowed like a proud mother when she made the introductions. "This is my sister, Lily."

_My Lily._

Petunia took the compliments meant for her sister as her own, because if she didn't, there would be none left for her.

x

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

It hadn't been serious, not until then. The scene was still suspended in chaos. Lily was distantly aware of Peter Pettigrew chortling with glee and Sirius Black with his wand out, conjuring up mischief unfathomable to any mind but his.

James, though, the set of his face was almost grave, wiped clean of school boy shenanigans. His voice was steady and his eyes holding nothing but heartfelt honesty. "I would never do that," he said.

It sounded like a promise, because it was.

Lily saw that, she saw it all. How could she not? It was written right there across his face. Yet she still turned away, forced herself to roll her eyes, like she couldn't be touched at all.

x

Petunia was flattened against the kitchen wall, and Lily was so angry. She was never just angry. She was angry like the world was ending, and she'd dealt the fatal blow.

The doors rattled in their hinges, slammed shut at the force of invisible hands. Every piece of crockery on every shelf shook and turned in its place.

Lily was so angry.

And then she wasn't.

Petunia stepped shakily forward, but when she spoke, her voice very nearly didn't tremble. She said, "No one else could love you like this."

x

"I want you to leave me alone."

"I can't."

"You can, you just don't want to."

James shook his head. "I wish I could, more than anything. Do you think I like hurting like this?"

Lily was frozen. She'd never ran through fields of flowers, she hadn't slid down bannisters. She'd never sat with her friends in the Great Hall and laughed until she cried. She'd never moved at all.

She'd never looked at James.

"I wish I could stop loving you," he said.

Lily could almost swear she heard the shatter. She could move again, a river over rocks, but she could still feel the ice in her veins. "You don't love me. You don't know me."

"I do, you just don't want me to."

x

The life shone out of Lily. It lit her up, from her green eyes to her larger than life smile to every strand of her flame-bright hair. It was in the way she walked, the strength with which she loved. Pretty perfect Lily.

And then,

her shadow.

The dark side of the moon.

But without the grace, the mystery. Only the cold. A layer of ice, from the tips of her fingers to the depths of her heart.

Petunia simply couldn't feel with the intensity that Lily could, but oh, how she wanted to.

Until she didn't anymore.

It hurt.

x

Nervous-happy butterflies danced in Lily's stomach, and she stopped her sister in the doorway. "Tuney-" I'm so happy, I just want to let you know, I want you to be happy too. Will you ever be happy again? Not for me, not necessarily, just at all.

But Lily never got past her name and Petunia didn't stop. The older girl held her nose in the air like happiness was a concept that didn't apply to her, and she looked back over her bony shoulders and she must have seen the lights in Lily's eyes die, for she smiled.

"That's not what I meant," Lily said, to no one at all.

She put a hand to her stomach, but the butterflies must all have died.

x

"You don't know a thing about me," Lily said, and she was angry, but nothing moved but the memories she still clung on to, falling further and faller out of reach.

And for a moment Petunia reeled, because she prided herself on knowing everything, about everyone. But Lily wasn't anyone. She was _other. _"Why would I want to?" she asked, in a voice that was all disdain.

The worst part was the pity she saw pooling in Lily's eyes.

Now it was Petunia that was losing control, but nothing moved but her fingers as they clenched into fists and her mouth as she screeched, "I never neededyou." What she meant to say, was _I don't want anything to do with you_ or _I don't want to be anything like you, _but maybe even her mouth knew neither was true. In the window, the curtains stirred, but that was only because of the wind.

She couldn't even revel in hearing Lily's whisper, as she left the room.

"I needed you."

Because somewhere deep and choked up inside her, Petunia held the truth. _I still need you._

x

"Lily, you're smiling!"

"Yes."

"At me?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"I don't know!"

"Is it a problem?"

"Yes! I can't stop."

James laughed. "I never want you to."

x

Sisters had been a promise, and you didn't break promises.

There was Petunia and there was Lily and that's all there was. That was all there needed to be.

Then the room they shared filled with tears. Petunia, aged thirteen, crying all the love out of her heart. Lily, older, in this house that was no longer her home, breaking down like she'd never be put back together.

It had all been falling apart for a long time, possibly longer than it was ever together, but this was the moment it hit the ground, and they both felt the impact to the very depths of them.

"I can't do this any more. I can't let you treat me like this any more. I don't let anyone treat me like this, and I can't keep making an exception for you."

x

No.

This was the one thing Petunia knew. She knew it because she was told it. Every day, by everyone.

Lily was the fairy tale princess. She was so lovely, so clever, the best there was.

She was Petunia's sister, and she was always meant to be so brave. She couldn't decide to just _stop_.

It wasn't like that.

Until it was.

Sisters was a promise, which meant it could be broken.

x

Petunia nearly cackled with glee to see Lily's hair a tangled mess, the make up around her eyes smeared and ugly, the whites of her eyes cracked with red. The tears on Lily's cheeks sent a cold thrill through Petunia. She was already so cold, she barely felt it.

The Petunia who'd been a girl, who'd had a sister, didn't say a word.

She was crushed by the hours this new Petunia spent in front of the mirror, straightening out her every wrinkle, covering every impurity.

"Get out get out get _out_," Lily screamed, and she wasn't prim and posed. She wasn't perfect. She'd never been perfect. Petunia had known that, kept it hugged to her heart like a secret. It threatened to break out into the world and Petunia would have loved nothing more than to see it rein free and true and horrifying.

The Petunia who had been a girl, who'd had a sister, she delighted to see the cracks in Lily's perfect facade, she loved when the younger girl needed her older sister's help. She'd help her, fix her, put her back together again. When Lily thanked her, Petunia glowed inside.

"That boy wouldn't love you, not if he saw you like this." Petunia stayed long enough to see the truth of it in her sister's eyes, before backing out of the room, thinking, _you need me_, and _you can't have me._

This was Lily, cracked and gloriously broken, and Petunia could feel her presence, even through the walls. In the mirror, her reflection reapplied their lipstick, behind her dead not-even-properly-blue eyes, the girl who had been Petunia screamed.

The new Petunia's hand fluttered to her cheeks. There was a crack in her foundation, and she tried to smooth it over.

x

"James, I can't keep going back there. I hate it. I hate who it makes me. Someone I'm not, or someone I don't want to be-"

"Stay with me."

"For how long?"

"Forever. Or as long as you like. Whatever comes first."

x

This was Lily, cracked and gloriously broken, alive in her anger. This was the Lily who stood up for herself, for others, this was the Lily who wouldn't allow herself to be beaten. But this was also Lily's weakness, Lily's sister. It wasn't even the blood they shared, but every memory.

But this was Lily, the Gryffindor, and she took a deep breath and she said it.

"I can't do this any more."

x

James said, "This is the Lily I love."

Lily asked, "Which Lily don't you love?"

"I love them all. I just worry about some more than others."

x

When the baby was old enough, they locked it under the cupboard and Petunia wished she could throw away the key.

"You have such beautiful eyes," she, and everyone else, had said to Lily.

Petunia remembered what they looked like, narrowed in disgust at the sight of her.

She remember the last thing Lily said, not ever, but in that conversation, the one Petunia blamed for changing everything, though it may really have only the point everything was always building up to.

"I can't keep making an exception for you," then, "It doesn't mean I no longer love you. I always will."

Petunia never remembered that part, because then she had to remember what she herself had said.

"I don't love you," were the words that left her mouth. "I couldn't. Not really. Not ever"

Petunia remembered how those eyes looked then, like a promise broken, and that was all she ever saw looking back at her.

x


End file.
